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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24180961">only thing that i'm guilty of</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/johntography/pseuds/johntography'>johntography</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>NCT (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Sleep Deprivation</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 23:22:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,012</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24180961</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/johntography/pseuds/johntography</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>That’s that, and they go back to sipping their drinks. Then Donghyuck says: “Come on, give me your shit."</p><p>Renjun raises his eyebrow. “Haven’t I been giving you shit since the moment we met?”</p><p>Donghyuck, despite himself, smiles.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Huang Ren Jun/Lee Donghyuck | Haechan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>142</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>only thing that i'm guilty of</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i wrote this last semester based on real events, but while i can guarantee you that renjun passed his module unfortunately i still don't know if i did too. professor koenig pls hurry up and grade my exam</p><p>and since today a beautiful gift was bestowed upon us with the haechan vs. renjun video (which you should def watch because it made me smile like an idiot), i thought it was a good time to post. enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Clink. </em>
</p><p>The desk shakes briefly on its thin, unstable legs.</p><p>Donghyuck looks up and there it is right in front of him, his favorite mug. Steam arises from it, warm, transparent mist; but the smell, dear God, tops it all. It’s sweet, but not overly so. There’s a sprinkle of cinnamon, a dash of milk visible in splotches underneath three petite marshmallows, melting together from the heat. It’s hot chocolate, the way he likes it to the T.</p><p>Donghyuck looks up even more from his position where he was basically taking a nap on the tabletop, expecting to meet Renjun’s gaze. Renjun is indeed standing on the other side of the desk. His own mug is filled with what Donghyuck is pretty sure a poisonous concoction of different caffeinated lemonades and energy drinks. But his tired eyes stare somewhere at the floor. There is a droop in his shoulders, too, making them seem even narrower than usual. (By force of conditioning, Donghyuck pinches his thigh for that observation, knowing Renjun would hit him much harder.)</p><p>“Thank you, oh Mighty One,” Donghyuck ends up saying, lazily pulling one of his earphones out that he had put in to block out the rain outside.</p><p>Renjun just hums in response, setting his poison-mug down and swirling its contents. But he doesn’t leave, which tells Donghyuck everything he needs to know: that he is on the right track.</p><p>Truly, there is no need for Renjun to indulge him. Donghyuck pesters Renjun like it’s his full-time job; he teases him about everything under the sun, frequently leaves dirty dishes behind knowing it grinds Renjun’s gears, borrows his things without asking. And Renjun does it right back. He makes jokes at Donghyuck’s expense, overreacts to the slightest provocation, gets in his face with conspiracy theories that are so pointless and delivered so seriously that Donghyuck goes red in the face with frustration.</p><p>As is to be expected, they often go too far. Sometimes, Donghyuck will make fun of the way Renjun copes with stress, something he finds hard to control. Once, he remarks on how Renjun had stuttered his way through ordering food on the phone, and comes home to a shut bedroom door and silence for several consecutive days. In turn, Renjun once laughed about Donghyuck’s struggle with academia and how he should just give up and turn to street busking, and the quiet study hour turned into a screaming match. The worst part is that both of them have tongues too sharp for their own good. But there are no real edges to smooth each other out. It’s all for show.</p><p>The trust that should have naturally developed between them over the years of being roommates isn’t always there either. Donghyuck may ask Renjun a harmless question about his well-being and get sent to hell. When Renjun immediately tries to offer Donghyuck solutions on one problem or another, Donghyuck just rolls his eyes at the pragmatism and leaves, saying he’d rather vent his problems to the wall.</p><p>So sometimes they’re cautious, sometimes not cautious enough. Especially if the circumstances are stressful like right now, what with it being exams season and tensions running even higher than usual. But there is a mug of hot chocolate in front of Donghyuck that Renjun made him without a question. Donghyuck’s next exam isn’t for another two days, whilst Renjun’s is in little over five hours.</p><p>Donghyuck knows a lot more about the subject of this exam than he cares to if he’s honest, because the entire apartment is plastered in sticky notes (spelling mistakes corrected with red, courtesy of Donghyuck). It doesn’t help that Renjun repeats whatever content didn’t fit on the flimsy little pieces of paper out loud <em> all the time – </em> when Donghyuck cooks, when they do the groceries, while the film they’re about to watch loads. Renjun is generally pretty harsh on himself, but Donghyuck is more than familiar with all the kinds of harsh entailed by his repertoire, and this is on a different level altogether.</p><p>So he says: “I think you need a nap, princess.”</p><p>Renjun hates being called princess, but he doesn’t even move a muscle this time. He just blinks and blinks again and scratches the back of his neck where his hair has been growing past its usual length to something Billy Ray Cyrus looking. Donghyuck has told him several times to get it cut because it doesn’t look cool, but he’s not sure he meant it even a single time.</p><p>“I don’t think ‘m gonna wake up in time,” Renjun says, finally. He sighs deeply and takes a sip.</p><p>Donghyuck shudders.</p><p>“What is it to you, anyway. Focus on your shit,” he adds, but it’s less of a dismission of Donghyuck’s caring behavior if one could call it that and more of a scolding for being behind on the material.</p><p>“I would be able to focus on my shit if you didn’t pace up and down the apartment like a maniac whose only soft spot was for a puppy he just found kicked to death on his doorstep,” Donghyuck bites back. </p><p>Now that gets Renjun’s attention.</p><p>“That makes absolutely zero sense. If that maniac is a psychopath – which I assume you’re talking about here – he wouldn’t be able to produce genuine emotional responses. He could perfectly well fake them, mimic the way others express their affect, but there would be no need for that if he is by himself. He’s a maniac, he doesn’t need to convince himself that he can care for an animal,” Renjun explains, his lip curling in disgust at Donghyuck’s flawed logic.</p><p>“What makes you think he can’t produce real emotional responses? Many psychopaths are considered that because they can turn off their emotions at will, not because they’re incapable of them. Who wouldn’t want to feel love for their dog after a long day of murdering people?”</p><p>“Oh what, like in the Vampire Diaries?” Renjun asks, his voice going all high-pitched and annoying.</p><p>“Maybe? What about it?” Donghyuck is properly invested now. “There’s no need to discredit TVD just because its primary target audience is teenage girls who haven’t had their first kiss yet and imagine it to be better than it actually ends up being.”</p><p>“If it was only that, I wouldn’t have as much of a problem with it. Instead, you made me watch four seasons of that crap, only for any semblance of a well-written character to go completely down the drain in favor of Doucheface Salvation getting a half-assed redemption arc.”</p><p>“So what if they haven’t been super consistent–”</p><p>“Or at all–”</p><p>“Stop interrupting me, you swine–”</p><p>“What are you gonna do about it, huh?”</p><p>“I’ll pour this,” Donghyuck points to his hot choco mug, “on your head and give you second degree burns.</p><p>“Well, if you do that, then I’m gonna change the WiFi password and prevent you from <em> finishing </em> your second degree.”</p><p>“You’re insufferable.”</p><p>“You bring it out in me.”</p><p>“Can’t bring out something that wasn’t there from birth.”</p><p>That’s that, and they go back to sipping their drinks. Then Donghyuck says:</p><p>“Come on, give me your shit.”</p><p>Renjun raises his eyebrow. “Haven’t I been giving you shit since the moment we met?”</p><p>Donghyuck, despite himself, smiles.</p><p>It probably looks more like a zombie grimace considering how tired he is and how bloodshot his eyes feel, but Renjun isn’t faring any better, although it’s not a bad look on him. In fact, when he smiles back at Donghyuck, he looks more alive than he has this entire week.</p><p>“Alright,” Renjun says moving his mug to the side, and gets up to get his flashcards.</p><p> </p><p>This is how they spend the next hour. Donghyuck asks Renjun the questions he needs to know and is overly nitpicky with the answers Renjun gets right, blaming it on the fact that he doesn’t have the slightest idea of the topic. Inbetween, Renjun goes over his notes for more details, and then Donghyuck returns to his textbook for a few minutes. Every other moment Renjun will sigh because there are too many concepts he doesn’t feel confident enough explaining, and Donghyuck pretends like he can’t hear it. Then Renjun will tap him on the side of his wrist, half of his hand hidden in a sweater paw, and ask to keep going. So keep going he does.</p><p>An hour and a half later they may or may not end up on YouTube. They watch compilations of some random shit that probably wouldn’t usually hold their concentration. If only it wasn’t this late and they weren’t so delirious from trying to cram all the knowledge inside their heads. Renjun gets annoyed having to sit on the opposite side, so he rolls over to Donghyuck on his dumb office chair, and his dumb giggle is right in Donghyuck’s ear to the point where he thinks continuing to study now would be the biggest mercy.</p><p>The rain is still gushing. They have gone back to studying and Renjun just can’t stop sighing.</p><p>“Jesus Christ, Huang, what is it?” Donghyuck bursts out.</p><p>“Shut up, Lee,” Renjun yells. He groans right after, like he thought that would make him feel better.</p><p>But it didn’t, so he continues, quieter: “I really don’t think I’m gonna do a good job on this one.”</p><p>Donghyuck’s instinct is to scoff because Renjun does a ‘good job’ at basically everything else so this one would time wouldn’t hurt, surely. But he overrides that instinct which is surprisingly easy when he’s this tired and Renjun is this upset. This is probably why they never study together, especially at the wee hours in the morning. It’s making him too soft.</p><p>“It’s okay if you don’t get an A,” Donghyuck says. His voice is gentler than he expected it to come out. “We almost went through your entire batch, and you got enough right to pass. This is what’s most important.”</p><p>“Did I really, though? I don’t even know at this point.”</p><p>Donghyuck tilts his head, a silent invitation.</p><p>“I really need to pass this, it’s a pre-requisite for a bunch of shit I need to do next semester. I can’t afford to hang behind by that much,” Renjun grits through his teeth. Donghyuck gets that; somehow, you always end up thinking about what you’re gonna have to do in a few months’ time while you’re still knee-deep in the mess of now, and it doesn’t alleviate the stress in the slightest.</p><p>“So you’re gonna pass it. And if you don’t, you’ll do the retake, and you’ll definitely pass then.”</p><p>“The retake date is when I’m in China – they hadn’t announced it then yet, and I–”</p><p>“It’s okay,” Donghyuck says. “Don’t think about that now–”</p><p>
  <em> Whoosh. </em>
</p><p>The trees outside sway and shake like they’re about to be uprooted.</p><p>“They said the buses are gonna run on holiday schedule tomorrow,” Donghyuck says, trying to distract Renjun from the sounds of the storm and his worries about the retake exam all at once.</p><p>“What does that even mean,” Renjun says, not quite a question because they both know exactly what it means in their small town. Donghyuck indulges him.</p><p>“One per hour, if you’re tall enough for the bus driver to notice you waiting at the stop. So none for you.”</p><p>“Fuck off,” Renjun says, but the corners of his mouth betray him.</p><p>“Another time,” Donghyuck retorts. “For now, I’m gonna fuck off into the kitchen and make us sandwiches.”</p><p>“Don’t put butter in mine,” Renjun reminds him.</p><p>Just for that, Donghyuck spreads a thick layer of butter on the upper bread slice.</p><p>He takes his time, turning on some jazz music that sounds vaguely like what Renjun listens to when doing his skincare before bed. There’s a hum of approval, a tap of fingers to the soft rhythm. Donghyuck chuckles to himself, cutting the vegetables in thin slices. The trees tremble. Then, he changes the song to something old that used to play on the radio when they were both in high school, and starts singing.</p><p>Renjun joins in. He always does, like he hears the unspoken challenge even though Donghyuck gets annoyed because he likes to hear himself (he can’t stand the thought that he might not sound good when he sings). Even when Renjun supplies the most beautiful harmonies and Donghyuck tells him to shut up, he only sings louder, and maybe that’s exactly what Donghyuck wants.</p><p>Right now it’s mostly what Renjun <em> needs </em>.</p><p>They belt out one note after the other, tongues slurring because the lyrics are too fast to do them justice. Donghyuck struts over to the living room with the sandwich-laden plates like the dirty carpet is a runway, and Renjun collapses in his office chair, laughing so hard his legs are flailing around even though it’s really not that funny. But the song playing is so old that it’s easy to channel how they felt back then, with fewer responsibilities and less guilt about just fucking around and doing whatever in their free time.</p><p>So Donghyuck stretches his arm out for Renjun and Renjun accepts it, dancing and singing and letting Donghyuck twist him, messing up his breath control. They go through the plethora of bad dance moves: the underwater boat, the 90s spaceship, the sway-from-side-to-side. Donghyuck tries to twerk, scandalizing Renjun into switching the lyrics into insults, so of course Donghyuck keeps on trying. Then Renjun twists Donghyuck and they both almost lose their balance, crashing against the desk, sending sheets of paper flying, laughing, sandwiches and studying forgotten. </p><p>Just until the song is over and Renjun realizes they kicked his phone off the desk.</p><p>“Goddammit!” he yells, going on his knees to pick it up, while Donghyuck tries to catch his breath, laughing still at Renjun’s wide-as-saucers eyes and hints of blush on his cheeks. <em> Cute, </em>he catches himself realize, and doesn’t shut the thought down the way he usually would.</p><p>“Is it working?”</p><p>“Looks like it,” Renjun murmurs, unlocking it and going to check his emails because that’s his idea of making sure his phone didn’t break. Donghyuck says as much, poking him in the side, following the pull. Renjun swats his hand away. He doesn’t move an inch.</p><p>Then, after a moment of scrolling, he says:</p><p>“All the exams tomorrow are cancelled because of the storm.”</p><p>“What?” Donghyuck asks.</p><p>“They’re cancelling everything. My exam is moved to next week,” Renjun says, completely emotionlessly, like he’s reading the newspaper.</p><p>“Wait–”</p><p>“OH MY GOD, THEY’RE RESCHEDULING MY EXAM,” Renjun yells, the realization finally sinking in. “I HAVE MORE TIME!”</p><p>“Hell yeah you do,” Donghyuck chuckles, vicariously relieved.</p><p>“Do you understand what this means,” Renjun says, eyes shining. He shakes Donghyuck by the shoulders, like he’s the one who only got the memo after reading the mail five times.</p><p>“Yeah, it means you’re gonna eat your sandwich and I can go the fuck to sleep,” Donghyuck says slowly.</p><p>“Do you understand what this means?” Renjun repeats quieter, smiling, letting go of Donghyuck’s shoulders and cupping his face in his hands.</p><p>“Um,” Donghyuck manages, helpfully.</p><p>Renjun just continues to hold his cheeks, one hand each. They’re a bit damp, really, and if Donghyuck really focuses on his sense of smell he will be able to tell that they’re both kind of sweaty. But he has half a mind to hold Renjun’s gaze, trying to decipher it, always searching for a puzzle to solve and to retort with a more complicated one of his own. He’s not that far off. Renjun looks at him right then as if he has all the answers, or as if he just realized all the questions he’s been asking are pointless and his eyes glow in the euphoria of sweet, treacherous peace of mind.</p><p>Donghyuck absentmindedly imagines a parallel universe. One where he’s a superhero, and Renjun is his mean harmless arch-nemesis who gets in trouble with the <em> actual </em> bad guys, and Donghyuck swoops in to save– help him out.</p><p>This is probably a little what it would be like. Their breaths intermingling, Donghyuck’s heartbeat going double time.</p><p>Renjun’s thumb strokes down Donghyuck’s right cheek. “I don’t know where I was going with this, to be honest.”</p><p>“I believe you were celebrating not having to fail an exam for the first time in your academic career,” Donghyuck says, slyly sucking his bottom lip into his mouth. Just to test Renjun. See what he would do.</p><p>“Yeah, something like that,” Renjun breathes out slowly, trying his hardest to seem composed. “I guess I’ve been wanting to… celebrate for a while.”</p><p>Donghyuck gives up on his seductive spiel, then, because he realizes he hasn’t been making up signals in his head that weren’t really there. He didn’t fall victim to the illusive comfort of their domesticity – or, perhaps, he has but then, so has Renjun. Renjun, who memorized the way he likes his hot chocolate, who sends emoji-less texts when Donghyuck stays too late at the library to hide his concern. Renjun, who is cute and smart and drives Donghyuck mad because it’s so difficult to get a rise out of him when all Donghyuck wants is to knock him down a peg, provoke him, be <em> closer </em> to him.</p><p>It’s pretty juvenile. But perhaps that’s what it makes it so great when Donghyuck earnestly says, “You’ve worked hard, you deserve a bit of celebration,” and encloses Renjun’s wrists in his hands. Renjun looks abashed, but he takes the hint the moment it’s dropped and pulls Donghyuck closer quickly, like he’s scared he’ll change his mind.</p><p>That’s how he kisses, too. Noisy, quick, brief touches of lips. They separate. Donghyuck squeezes his wrists, leaning back a little.</p><p>“Calm down,” he whispers. “Your exam was cancelled, we have all night.”</p><p>“Don’t be such a pervert,” Renjun whispers back. The tension visibly bleeds out of his shoulders though, so Donghyuck will take it.</p><p>“What are you gonna do about it?” Donghyuck challenges, and pulls him back towards his office chair, ready to kiss whatever dumb response Renjun has to offer out of him.</p>
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